The essay “Seeing Through the Bell Jar: Distorted Female Identity in Cold War America” by Rosi Smith, argues that the book “The Bell Jar”, by Sylvia Plath is about women in 1950s America struggling to find their personal identity outside of what was defined by the Cold War ideology of women's role in the family. According to Smith, Esther Greenwood's character's inability to integrate her identity is due to the state of the political environment and the time period in which the book is written. Smith argues that, “In a society where paranoia and surveillance were widespread it is impossible to separate image, performance, and identity, because all are ideologically limited and Esther's deeply personal self-alienation is inextricable from the external political climate” (35). Smith is saying that Esther is hindered by external forces other than her mental state or pathology. Esther's story is that she is an intelligent young woman who attends a prestigious college. Esther has won scholarship after scholarship and is currently working on an internship at a magazine in New York. But after the disappointing news that she has been denied entry to a coveted writing course, Esther begins to enter a state of depression. Her depression is compounded by the fact that society expects her to want to be a stay-at-home wife and mother and not the hard-working, intelligent, self-sufficient woman she is capable of being. We see Esther descend into self-destructive behavior where she attempts suicide and ends up in a mental hospital. Esther is "punished", according to her, with shock therapy. The end of the novel brings us to Esther's evaluation before several doctors to decide whether she... middle of paper... against the backdrop of today's political and social ideals for which I may not have felt much empathy Esther, as I do me with her, is placed in the Cold War era, with limited life choices for intelligent, fulfillment-seeking women. Women of this era were limited by their femininity and this left those who were more intellectual thinkers feeling dissatisfied in their expected gender role of "housewife". In conclusion, I liked Smith's arguments about gender roles and what was expected of women in the Cold. War era. It was eye-opening to see how far women have come today, based on the ideal role of the 1950s woman. Works Cited Plath, Sylvia. The bell jar. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Print.Smith, Rosi. “Seeing Through the Bell Jar: Distorted Female Identity in Cold War America.” Seeing through the bell jar: Distorted female identity in Cold War America. 33-55. Press.